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around, and drove along the pitted farm track until he reached the Bl77. They waited until they were clear of the farm before removing the balaclavas. Rebecca Wells stared out the window as Spencer drove expertly along the rolling, winding roadway.
    “You didn’t have to do that, Rebecca. I would have done it for you.”
    “Are you saying I’m not good enough to handle my job?”
    “No, I’m just saying that it’s not right.”
    “What’s not right?”
    “A woman killing,” Spencer said. “It’s not right.”
    “And what about Dame?” Rebecca said, using the code name of the woman who had carried the suitcase bomb into the London Underground. “She killed many more people than I did tonight, and she gave her life as well.”
    “Point well taken.”
    “I’m responsible for intelligence and internal security,” she said. “Kyle wanted him dead. It was my job to make him dead.”
    Spencer let it drop. He switched on the radio to help pass the time. He turned onto the Al and headed toward Banbridge. A few moments later Rebecca groaned. “Pull over.”
    He braked to a halt on the apron of the road. Rebecca opened the door and stumbled out into the rain. She fell to her hands and knees in the light from the headlamps and was violently sick.

CHAPTER 4

WASHINGTON

    The meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President James Beckwith had been scheduled well in advance; the fact that it fell just one week after the Ulster Freedom Brigade launched its wave of terror was coincidence. In fact, both men went out of their way to portray the meeting as a routine consultation between good friends, which in most respects it was. As the prime minister arrived at the White House from Blair House, the guest quarters across the street, President Beckwith assured his visitor that the mansion had been named in his honor. The prime minister flashed his famous tooth-and-gums smile and assured President Beckwith that the next time he came to London a British landmark would be named in his honor.
    For two hours the President and the prime minister met with their aides and assistants in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The agenda included a wide range of issues: coordination of defense and foreign policy, monetary and trade policy, ethnic tension in the Balkans, the Middle East peace process, and, of course, Northern Ireland. Shortly after noon the two leaders adjourned to the Oval Office for a private lunch.
    Snow drifted over the South Lawn as the two men stood at the window behind Beckwith’s desk and admired the view. A large fire burned brightly in the fireplace, and a table was set before it. The President confidently took his guest by the arm and shepherded him across the room. After a lifetime in politics, James Beckwith was comfortable with the ceremonial aspects of his job. The Washington press corps routinely said he was the best performer to occupy the Oval Office since Ronald Reagan.
    Still, he was beginning to tire of it all. He had barely won reelection, trailing his opponent, Democratic senator Andrew Sterling of Nebraska, throughout the campaign until an Arab terrorist group blew a jetliner from the sky off Long Island. Beckwith’s skillful handling of the crisis—and his quick retaliatory strikes against the terrorists—had helped turn the tide.
    Now he had settled comfortably into lame-duck status. The Democratic-controlled Congress had scrapped the primary goal of his second term, the construction of a national missile defense system. His agenda, such as it was, consisted of a series of minor conservative initiatives that required no congressional backing. Two members of his cabinet were being picked apart by independent counsels for financial misconduct. Every night over dinner Beckwith and his wife, Anne, talked less about politics and more about how they would spend their retirement in California. He had even granted Anne’s longtime wish to take their summer vacation in the mountains